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mgray@mit.edu | RLE Bio

Martha Gray, PhD, is the J.W. Kieckhefer Professor and former director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST). Dr. Gray also directs the Madrid-MIT M+Vision Consortium.

Dr Gray has led a multifaceted career in which she has conducted research to better understand and prevent osteoarthritis, led a preeminent academic unit, and served the profession through work with organizations and institutions. Her research has centered over the past 15 years on ways to nondestructively visualize cartilage macromolecules in vivo and in vitro. Many in industry and academia are now using the MR method developed by her group, known as dGEMRIC.

During and since her 13 year tenure as head of HST, she shepherded its vigorous growth so that now it boasts a community of over 400 students, 65 faculty and nearly 200 affiliated faculty who create a multi- disciplinary and multi-professional environment in classrooms, hospitals and laboratories and seek to advance human health. Most recently her efforts have focused on advising other institutions and governments as they pursue similar efforts.

Professor Gray's research is geared towards understanding and, ultimately preventing or slowing the cartilage degeneration that affects at least 6 out of 10 people over age 45. Over the last decade, the efforts of Professor Gray and her colleagues have been primarily directed at establishing MRI tools that provide a picture of the biochemical and functional properties of the tissue. Specifically, they have developed and verified a method that indicates the amount of glycosaminoglycan (GAG) in the tissue. Regions of tissue that are functionally inadequate can be distinguished from normal tissue even when the entire tissue is anatomically intact (and looks normal with the usual imaging methods). They have also demonstrated that this imaging method can be used clinically (in vivo in humans) and for basic science studies of cartilage development. She and her colleagues have also shown that differences in GAG correspond with differences in mechanical (functional) tissue properties. Though some important issues remain to be solved before this imaging method becomes as routine as x-rays are now, there is sufficient evidence to support our optimism that this method could ultimately become a routine tool. To that end, HST researchers are engaged in using this enabling technology for a number of basic science and clinical research.

Dr. Gray was the first woman to lead a science or engineering department at MIT. She is an elected fellow of the AAAS, the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE). She is associate editor of the Annual Reviews of Biomedical Engineering. Her training includes a BS in computer sciences from Michigan State University, an MS in electrical engineering from MIT and a PhD in medical engineering from HST, and completed her postdoctoral work at Tufts University and the State University of New York Stony Brook.

Affiliations



IP

Cell analysis and sorting apparatus for manipulation of cells

Roberge, J. & Gray, A Method for the Measurement of the Ratio of Distance; (US pat. No. 5,189,376, issued February, 1993).

Shapiro, A., Gray, M., Mandelez, L., Venegas, J., Schaefer, J. & Wright, I., Cell Stretching Apparatus (US pat. No. 5,217,899, issued June 1993) and Method (US pat. No. 5,348,879, issued September 1994).

Sobek, D., S. Senturia, M. Gray, & A. Young. A Microstructure for Optical Measurement in Fluids; MIT Case No. 5230.

Braff, R., Voldman, J., Gray, M., Schmidt, M., & Toner, M.,Cell Analysis and Sorting Apparatus for Manipulation of Cells (US pat. No. 6,692,952; issued February 2004).

Po, B., Burstein, D., Gray, M., MRI Mapper. Copyright MIT and BIDMC, 2006.

 

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